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Exactly How I’m Making $2,500 Per Month Selling On Amazon FBA

In 2014, I invested in a fantastic program called the Amazing Selling Machine.

This program, Amazing Selling Machine (or “ASM”), is a program that I heard a lot about. It was created by peers in a mastermind group of mine, Matt Clark & Jason Katzenback. The program was essentially teaching step-by-step how to private label and sell products on Amazon FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon).

Many friends and people that I knew were getting into the Amazon business and having monstrous success with it.

In fact, I know first-hand a few individuals that are friends and acquaintances that are making up to $100,000 per month selling on Amazon. These numbers blew my mind and really excited me at the same time.

When I invested in the Amazing Selling Machine and started with the Amazon business, I knew I was heading in the right direction. I knew that the creators of it, Matt Clark & Jason Katzenback were high quality individuals with integrity. I didn't have any fear of it being a “scam” or any skepticism whatsoever. The individuals, the testimonials and the results from my friends gave me the confidence and belief in it.

In 2014, I slowly followed the program and worked on getting my Amazon product up there part-time.

In many ways, I feel like I had a disadvantage from most. I didn't have as much time to focus on building my Amazon business, simply because I am currently running 4 other companies and online businesses that occupy much of my time. In fact, many people that joined at the same time as me were able to get much further ahead and have success before I even decided on my product!

Thankfully, my girlfriend was interested in doing the Amazon business as well. She started with her product before me and in many ways, I followed her lead and she helped motivate me to move forward with mine.

I launched my product on Amazon in February 2015. During that first month, my product generated about $1000 in sales.

In March of 2015, it generated about $2500 in sales.

And now in April of 2015, I'm projecting to do over $3000 in sales. I'm also beginning to start 2 more products that I plan on launching in the coming months.

In this video blog, I'm going to reveal the process and steps that I took of how I made $2500 in my 2nd month selling on Amazon.

This page contains affiliate links. If you purchase a product through one of them, I will receive a commission (at no additional cost to you). I only ever endorse products that I have personally used and benefitted from personally. Thank you for your support!

1. Decide On A Niche And Product To Sell

The process that I've learned from the Amazing Selling Machine is to find “private label products” and sell them.

To do this, you first need to identify the right niche and market you want to pursue.

You need to ensure that there is a DEMAND and MARKET for whatever it is that you want to sell.

One of the ways to do this is to search around on Amazon, specifically the Amazon Bestseller List. This will give you an idea of what is selling and what is hot.

There's a certain criteria that is important to follow when deciding. It's a challenge to explain all of it in a blog post, but some of that criteria is ensuring the product has good profit margins, isn't too big or heavy, can be sold for over $10, and doesn't have too much competition.

2. Find A Supplier To Manufacture Your Product

Once you've decided on your product, you then need to find a supplier.

The process of private labeling a product means that you're finding a supplier that is ALREADY MAKING the product that you want to sell. They're already making and manufacturing it, and you're going to place your own label and packaging on it.

So for example, let's say you want to sell a Yoga Mat.

You'd then do a search on Alibaba or Google and find suppliers that are making yoga mats. You'd then contact them and ask them a series of questions, to see if you're a right fit. If you're a right fit, then you'll order the yoga mats from them and have them put on your own label or packaging on the product. Make sense?

Of course, every supplier makes different types of yoga mats. So you'd find one that you like, is high quality, is different from what is already out there, and can possibly even be customized (put your logo on it).

This part of the process is perhaps one of the most challenging parts, as there's many logistics to it, depending if you're sourcing from China or the United States.

There's a series of questions you'll want to ask the potential suppliers, such as the cost of X # of units, minimum order quantity, the quality of the product, how long it'll take to make, shipping costs, etc…

3. Get Your Packaging And Labeling Created

Once you decide on the supplier, you'll need to get packaging and labeling done. I used the website 99Designs for mine and paid about $500. However, my girlfriend was tight on money and found a quality person to do her logo and packaging on oDesk. I think she paid less than $100 – and by the way, she did $3900 last month on Amazon!

The package/label must meet the criteria from your supplier.

For example, I am selling a supplement on Amazon and I'm limited in what claims I can make. Every claim I make must be approved by my supplier and I have to provide a study/factual data to back up any claim made.

4. Set Up Your Amazon Product Listing

While you're waiting for your product to be manufactured, you can set up your Amazon product listing.

This is the listing that will appear on Amazon.com. You'll want to ensure you have high quality graphics and product images. You'll also want to make sure that your listing is keyword optimized, contains benefits, a well-written product description, and possibly even bonuses.

The better listing you have, the more sales you'll get. You want to find ways to differentiate your product from the others and really sell it well.

5. Ship Your Inventory To Amazon FBA

In Amazon Seller Central, you can create a “Shipping Order” which will indicate the locations of the Amazon Fulfillment Centres that Amazon wants you to send your inventory to.

Amazon requires you to ship your inventory to multiple locations across the United States, so that they can have your inventory spread out and be able to quickly deliver your products to the customers.

If you're shipping from China, then you have the options of boat or plane. Plane is much faster, but is more expensive. You can ship via boat, however it'll take longer and you need to ship it to a dock that will receive it and have it go through customs first, then forward it to the Amazon Fulfillment Centre.

6. Launch Your Product

Once your inventory is in, it's time to launch your product to get it ranked and selling.

A successful launch requires getting a large number of sales (in a short period of time), as well as getting a lot of Amazon reviews in a short period of time. The shorter time-frame you get these things, the higher boost you'll get in the Amazon search engine for your keyword.

There's so many strategies for launching and selling your product, but some that I've used are:

Giving away product to friends/family for $2 in exchange for honest review

Giving away product on coupon code websites for $2 and various services for honest reviews

Amazon Ads

Build a Facebook fan page in related niche, launch it to fans

Use Facebook Ads to target specific niche

These are the strategies I've used initially, but I've now expanded to many others and I'm building long-term sources of traffic to my product.

7. Build A Brand Presence

Selling on Amazon isn't a “gimmick” or short-term way of making money. It's a long-term, real, sustainable business.

As a result, you want to build a brand.

I've built a website for my product and expanded my brand. I've built social media accounts too.

I plan on using blogging, YouTube, and every channel that I can to create content and build a legitimate brand around my product.

Once your product is selling, you want to expand your product line. You want to release more related products so you can cross-promote them, launch them to your list, and build a big brand!

Hey Tim, great to hear from you brother! Yes, it’s an expensive training program and business, but worth it. Here’s why:

1) The training is best quality out there. Not just the training, but the several softwares they give you, the mentors, community, live event, etc… all top-notch and high quality. More than that, it works, and the results/testimonials of people making $100k+ per month shows the potential is there. I’m apart of their Facebook group and there’s people posting every week their results and it’s mind blowing.

2) When you pay a lot for something, you are more likely to commit to it, put in the work and take action. I’ve noticed this first hand. If you pay $10 for something, you might not even open it or use it. If you pay $100, you’ll likely be more serious. But if you pay $1000+ then you are damn well going to make it work and put in the work and take it seriously. You have more on the line and you’re more accountable to it.

3) You WANT it to be expensive. If it was cheap, then EVERYONE would do it and then there wouldn’t be much of a barrier of entry for people to come in and compete with you. For me because I invested in this, I don’t have to worry about many people competing with me. Many people just don’t have the resources to. As a result, I can dominate my niches and markets and only those that are TRULY committed and invest in it can stand a chance. I’ve learned more and more that you want to be in businesses where there are high barriers of entry to enter it.

4) You simply can’t compete with others that are in ASM. The people that invest in ASM and launch a product, know strategies and methods that you don’t know. They have a huge advantage over you if you attempt to do this business without the quality training. In the same way, it’s like someone trying to do Kindle publishing without K Money Mastery and Full Disclosure. Good luck, it will be VERY challenging to compete with members that are in my program because they have access to over 100+ videos teaching my 3+ years of experience doing this and coaching what works.

5) Amazon is a business that requires a startup, as most businesses do. It takes money to make money (and TIME). Most businesses I know don’t make a profit back right away. This is called business. Heck, I have a friend here in Vancouver that just spent $500,000 to open up his own business. He took out a loan from the bank. He isn’t going to make that back right away, however, he is building an asset and business that will make him millions of dollars for years to come. That’s the truth about business, and with Amazon, depending on your inventory it can cost over $1,000. But if my girlfriend who is only 21 can do it (while working a job at the bank and going to school), and can invest $1000 into her inventory and find ways to save money here and there, then ANYBODY can do it! I have people I’ve been coaching over the last 6 months that have been able to succeed at it with only ordering 300 units of their inventory and spending a couple hundred bucks to get their product up there and selling.

So I can’t give you exact #’s of what the investment is – every niche and product is different. But there are many that you can find that are inexpensive and you can always find ways to save money (or maybe it takes longer for you… who knows), but my key to success has been just getting started and then figuring out the rest as I go.

Eugene

Hey Stefan, understand that KMM is for everyone but not sure if this ASM is the same? I mean is it for those who live outside US and Canada?

Yes, anyone in the world can sell on Amazon. And ASM they actually just re-did the entire training and made it much easier for those that live outside of the USA to sell on Amazon. I actually have a number of friends that are right now living in Bali, Indonesia all selling Amazon products.

luxxhealth

This is a great course, i’m so fortunate to have gone through it. For me it is motivating to know that you create a product that is now being shipped to people around the world (or just the US) and people are benefiting from it! It is so exciting and keeps you wanting to work harder. I’ve been doing both ASM and KMM and I don’t think it is overwhelming. There is a lot of waiting in the beginning process of getting your first product and with that waiting time you can be making books. I started off with a product that sells for only $10. I ship it from China, I found my supplier on Alibaba. I’ve learned lots of shortcuts to getting things done like stefan mentioned, instead of spending $500 on labeling I spent about $150. Here are my sales stats for my first month.There’s a lot I could be doing to increase sales right now but i’m low on inventory (having some more shipped right now) so i’m expecting better sales for next month!

Hey Holly, yes I paid $500 on 99Designs for my label design. For my product, because I wanted it to be high quality and went with a good supplier, costs around $5 per bottle to make. At 1000 units, it was about $5000. However, there’s many products that you can private label from China that are less than $1 to make… and you don’t need 1000 units to start, I know people that have started with 300 units, then bought more once they are selling.

Salmaan Aslam

Stephan, you’ve done your readers a great favor by sharing what you are doing in detail.

I’ve personally gone through various videos and articles on FBA but haven’t seen anyone sharing their products so Kudos for that.

Thanks Salmaan! Yes, very few people share their niches out of fear of competition. However, I’m never worried about competition – I know I can out-compete anyone with hard work and determination! I ideally want to build a big supplement line and have a lot of different products, as well as doing more health related videos. But really, there’s SO many niches out there that are profitable on Amazon, it’s ridiculous!

Eddie

Awesome tips and results Stefan, really appreciate your openness 🙂 I’ve been doing Amazon for over a year and took it from 0 to £500k in the first year solely on retail arbitrage.

I’m definitely going to be getting ASM through you to expand my private label products, and maybe we can share ideas as I’ve just bought KMM, which is absolutely amazing and I’m looking forward to getting my first book published/scaling it up.

No prob Eddie! Great, looking forward to working with you (I’ll be doing a bonus for those that join ASM through me). My profit margins are 50% right now, but will be much higher once I rank higher on Amazon. Right now I have my price a bit lower so that I can get more sales + rank, but then once you have a lot of reviews and rank, then you can sell your product at a more premium price.

Francesca Fazio

Thanks Stefan for all the things you share with us, is priceless!!!!!
I have even singed up for the 100daychallenge, and is going great!!!! I wish you all the best in your future!!!

Yes Nick, it’s sales – that’s what Amazon Seller Central shows and that’s the easiest thing to give proof of, with the screenshots and everything. My profit margins are 50% (including my cost to manufacture product and Amazon fees). Right now I don’t care much about profit, as I’m aiming to rank higher for my keyword in Amazon and build up the authority of my listing. Once it’s ranked higher, I am able to increase the price, which will increase my profit margins as well.

Nick R. Babeesi

OK Awesome. 50% is a tremendous margin in physical product sales, thanks for the context.

1) My profit margin right now is about 50% for my product. That is a good range you want to aim for. That’s including my manufacturing cost and Amazon fees. I haven’t done much marketing, except for $170 in the last 2 months on Amazon Ads. Everyone has different profit margins, but they get better once your Amazon listing gets bigger and ranked better. For example, you can then order a bigger inventory and cut your costs down a lot. Or you can increase your price.

2) Yes, definitely people that will spend A LOT, depending on how expensive their product is to manufacture and how much units you order. I’ve seen people launch their product and have success for roughly $1000. This is including manufacturing 1000 units (getting products from China for less than $1 each) and the logo/label/package design.

Mike D

How were you able to get such a high number of reviews in 2 months’ time? I use the popular services but the costs adds up.

Hey Mike, I have a variety of strategies that I’ve learned to utilize with my background with Kindle publishing for the last 3 years. Maybe I will create a training on it at some point.

atif shaikh

Hi stefan,
hope you doing well man !
i just came across your blog from youtube , mentally i have planned to manufacture and private labeled product then send to amazon FBA , since i am new person and have no prior knowledge of shipping and selling , i would request you to answer few questions ,

1- if the product we manufacture from (china eg alibab.com ) , does manufacturer provide UPC bar code on product they make ? when we order private label product ; as per the law if we manufacture own good by our brand name , we must required to acquire UPC ; when i googled i found people are buying UPC code or from other cheap resources . could you explain this terms?

2- if the person started his business outside the USA and he want to ship directly to FBA warehouse ,from Chinese manufacture , how we manage the labeling and packing & barcode UPC ,what if manufacture not provide UPC barcode ? we required to labelled the product before arriving to FBA house , if this manufacture fails to label the product the whole inventry will be in loss .
you are the man who is running real business , hope you will answer my queries , appreciated

James Stevens

Hi Stefan,

Thank you very much for this information I really appreciate it (sorry if this is long).

I am new to to all of this, I actually have a product in mind that I want to start selling, and also have a logo ready for a graphic designer to create. I’m just trying to learn all the steps and all of the costs involved. For example: US customs, port fees, value added taxes, purchasing UPC labels, and which port would be best for living in Oklahoma City.

I’ve been looking all over forums, and the internet in general to figure out what I need to do in order to make my first order, but I keep finding more costs, and I want to make sure I have everything covered so I can make a good estimate of what this will all cost me (so I can get a bank loan).

Also, I live in an apartment and I don’t know if I can store all of those boxes (until they’re sent to fba – I want to inspect the items before I start having them sent directly to amazon in the future). I also don’t know how those boxes are going to arrive once they leave the port. And I don’t know what to do once they get to the port or how to prepare before it’s shipped from China. Is there is someone I have to hire to keep track of the inventory when it’s being shipped here, where would I go to hire that person?

I hope you can point me in the right direction because I don’t know where to go from here.

P.S. I’m already in contact with a seller in China and have already received a proforma invoice.

Thank you so much for what you’re doing.
– Crystal

winfred

Is it possible for someone to start from next to nothing? I’m unemployed and barely living with no investment capital or whatever. The only reason I don’t have a credit rating is because I’ve never owned anything. I’m willing to work hard trying to learn what is the best way to start selling something. Am I waisting my time until I can save up some investment captal in my situation?

Thanks!
Winfred

Loura AL Siyabi

thank you very much , you are very helpful but something not clear to me which is:

once you have design label for your product, are the supplier will print it and done all packing for you. i mean you gave them the design only?

Jose Santiago Casanova

This is great! Any timeline on the release of the FBA program you’re working on?

Is there any other market besides Health & Fitness? I don’t care about that market personally, so I fear I can’t get too excited about it. I like storage solutions, toys, games, books, etc.

ABOUT STEFAN JAMES

I'm a 7-figure internet entrepreneur and coach with a passion for living life to the fullest and fulfilling my potential as a human being. Project Life Mastery is a way for me to be a powerful and passionate example of the unlimited possibilities that life offers, while sharing ideas that can make a difference in your quality of life.Learn More